SGU Episode 365

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Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday, July 2nd 2012, and this is your host, Steve Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson.

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novella.

J: Hey guys.

S: Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening, folks.

S: And, we have a special guest rogue this week: Daniel Beauley. Daniel, welcome to The Skeptics' Guide.

D: That's very hospitable of you. Thanks a lot.

B: Our pleasure, Dan.

S: Dan, you were kind enough to bid on the guest rogue spot at TAM9 last year, and it only took us one year to hook up with you.

(chuckles)

S: To get you on the show. And we're getting it in just under the wire; this is the show that will come out during TAM while we're hopefully auctioning off the slot for next year. But thanks for joining us.

D: Yeah.

S: So, Dan, tell us a little bit about yourself.

D: Yeah, well, you've had many guest rogues and a couple of the auction winners; a lawyer^{[link needed]} and author, or I guess, doctor, Ray^{[link needed]}. And, I'm a working stiff, essentially. I'm one of those telecom guys that might install your phone or Internet service copper or fiber optic.

E: We'll have to talk after the show.

D: Oh yeah? (chuckles)

E: (unintelligible)

S: Yeah, can you hook us up or what?

(laughing)

D: Wrong state.

E: It's not what you know, it's who you know, right?

S: How is fiber optic doing, I mean, do people actually get fiber optic into their house yet?

D: Oh, well, without naming too many companies, I've -- I'm in an area where fiber optic Internet and telephone is available, and meh... there were, of course, some first adopters -- really enthusiastic, and then television on fiber came along and really seemed to push the saleability. And I haven't really kept tabs on all the areas with fiber optic. But, you know, it's popular. It's certainly bandwidth-intensive; you can really put some great speeds on the fiber optic without even taxing the medium.

S: Well, that's what we want.

D: (chuckles) Yeah, exactly. That's what you're --

S: We want bandwidth, baby!

D: Yup, yup.

B: Dan, do you know off-hand what kind of megabit per second you can get download with fiber optic -- I forget what that number is; do you know off the top of your head?

D: Well -- keep in mind that I twist a screwdriver for a living, by and large; you know, crawl under mobile homes and stuff, but as some of the specs that -- as from what I understand it, we use single-mode fiber, so it's a frequency-specific type of fiber; there's a couple of frequencies that travel long and other frequencies of light are attenuated greatly. And so, the frequencies we use can, properly spliced, provide about 2.3 gigabits per second.

S: Aaah!

D: Right?

J: Wow.

B: Oh my God. That's awesome.

D: To a single -- right. And that, of course, is split up somewhat to deliver the typical residential service. So our typical packages go up to about 30 meg on download and 15-30 meg on upload.

B: OK. I'm getting one kilobit a second. So that would be very nice. (unintelligible) I am not kidding!

D: Oh gosh.

J: Dan, one more question about fiber optic: Is it true that you have to limit the bend that you put in a fiber optic cable?

D: Well, yeah, you have to limit it; I mean, that's a relative assessment, but -- I'm a 15-year tech; we've been working with fiber optic for about six years, and even in that time, the bend radius has been going down and down. You could take your typical ballpoint pen and wrap the fiber around it and lose very little -- you'll have very little light loss. Now, fiber likes to be relaxed, so of course we have whatever, you know, 4-inch trays to put the bending fiber in, and that usually keeps it at a very nice radius, but you can really wrap it.

J: That's interesting. Yeah, I guess I'm pulling from very old information then that I have tucked away in my head, that I picked up somewhere, I guess in earlier days, there was a maximum bend that you could do without data loss and all that stuff, but I'm not surprised to hear today that you could just basically do what you need to do with it.

D: Yeah, and there may be some differences in the single- or multi-mode types of fiber, but I'm not aware of what.

This Day in Skepticism (4:38)

• July 14, 1960 - Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild.

News Items

UFOs on National Geo (10:13)

National Geographic: Five Good Reasons to Believe in UFOs

Seeing Inside Tissue (32:32)

ScienceDaily: Seeing Inside Tissue for No-Cut Surgeries

GOP Opposes Critical Thinking (39:46)

Neurologica: Anti-Science as a Political Platform

Alternative Chocolate (47:39)

unfiltered perception: Xocai – the nasty tale of a Norwegian chocolate mafia

Who's That Noisy? (57:58)

• Answer to last week: Victor Zammit

Questions and Emails

Space Mining (1:00:27)

S: All right, thanks Evan. We're going to do one email this week; this one comes from Charlie from Frantorp, Sweden.

E: Charlie.

S: Now, he gives his last name, but honestly, I think he's pulling our leg here with these characters. I mean, these are not real letters, right? Charlie K., and he writes:

I listened with interest to your interview about future possible mining of asteroids. There was however a question left unanswered. Perhaps it it something you could talk a little about on the SGU? What is the legal status for space mining? Is it a free-for-all? Can anybody with a rocket and a shovel mine any celestial body? Take for example the hypothetical platimum-asteroid. If a US company landed on one side of the asteroid and began mining and a chinese company (or government) landed on the other side, what would be the legal situation? And let's not forget the american flag that was put on the moon in '69. Does that prohibit the swiss from going there to mine all that cheese that Jay talked about? best regards Charlie

S: Dan, you looked into this a little bit for us.

D: Yeah. Well, I found a couple of articles; in fact, this question is quite timely because there's been a lot of developments lately in the space exploration and private industry... So, there aren't a lot of legal precedents. There is a U.N. treaty; it's an older one, it's 1967. So the 1967 Outer Space Treaty through the U.N. -- and it, I believe, it's been signed -- there are several countries that are signatories -- the space-faring countries are signatories of that treaty, but they're probably signatories, in my opinion, because it doesn't mean much. It is, at best, ambiguous; it both allows basically for unfettered and undiscriminated harvesting of space resources while also saying that you really can't own anything out there -- perhaps you can own the ore if you do mine it, and that is about as far as you can go.

S: Well, there was -- I did find reference to a 1979 Moon Treaty, which forbids private ownership of extraterrestrial real estate. However, that's only been ratified by 13 countries, which is not much at all. So it doesn't really -- and none of them are major space-faring nations. So, none of the people who could actually get into space have agreed that they can't own space -- own extraterrestrial real estate. So, I think it's ambiguous. Probably not going to be an issue for a while, I think... if you can get to an asteroid and mine it, good luck; you have the right to it. It's not like people are going to by vying for the same asteroid, at least not any time soon.

Science or Fiction (1:03:09)

Item number one. Archaeologists have discovered the oldest example of cave art, dating back 40,800 years BP. Item number two. The earliest evidence of copper smelting was recently discovered in Eastern Serbia and dates to 7,000 years BP. And item number three. Archaeologists have discovered the oldest evidence of archery, a yew bow dating back 7,400 years BP.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:16:07)

S: All right, Jay, what do you got for a quote this week?

J: I have a very awesome quote here and I want you, Steve, to guess who this is. But I will say that this quote was sent in by Ole Hjolmersen. Ole's from Sweden, and he sent in this kick-ass quote and I'm testing my brother Steve with this quote.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death--however mutable man may be able to make them--our existence as a species can have a genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

S: Yeah, the two people that it makes me think of -- one is Carl Sagan, it's kind of the way he writes. But I think Isaac Asimov comes to mind as well.

J: You know, not bad guesses but you're not quite there. STANLEY KUBRICK!

S: Oh, Stanley Kubrick. Cool!

E: Whoa!

J: That actually was a quote taken from a Playboy interview; he did it in Playboy magazine.

E: So, let's compare 2001 to Prometheus.

(all laughing)

J: Not -- Don't even. Hey, Dan, thanks for joining us. It was a really good time, man.

R: Yeah, thanks, Dan. You did well.

B: Great job!

D: Real pleasure.

J: Dan, I gotta ask you: was it worth it?

D: Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? Ohh. Great.

(laughing)

D: Was it Michael? Yeah, and he said something about the thrill of watching the sausage being made. Yeah.

(laughing)

R: You know, you can tell no one, Dan. No one. How the sausage gets made. They'll vomit, OK?

S: A secret you'll have to take to your grave.

D: Nope; that's the thrill of secrets.

S: All right, well, thanks for joining us, Dan. And thank you all for joining me again this week.

R & J: Thank you, Steve.

E: Doctor.

B: You're welcome.

S: And until next week, which will be our TAM episode, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

References